Realistic Draping of Fabric Patterns

The following illustration was submitted by Jeanne McDermott, via our xChange online support forum. Jeanne’s method is simple, yet the impact is stunning.

We love when our community of users shares with us the neat things that can be accomplished with DreamDraper. The xChange is a great place for designers and workroom professionals to interact and share tips, methods and inspiration! Be sure to visit daily and click on “New Posts” to see what is new since your last visit. We add information and tips daily to maximize your skills and enhance your business!

“I just wanted to share a before and after rendering I recently did for a designer. I created several renderings and the fabric ultimately chosen was a plaid by Calico Corners for Kingston valences and panels.

We both agreed that the rendering just did not truly represent how the fabric would fall for a Kingston. I played around with DD and the final result I think is great.

I manipulated the colors/shapes in the valance to give the feel of real movement and increased the scale of the plaid too. I was even able to change the placement of the colors in the valance to make sure the red stripe was on top.

When I finished this I really felt good about using my DreamDraper!!”

How did she do it?

“I added the plain valance drawing and scaled it on the picture. Then I copied it.

With the copy I played with creating four shapes – one on top of the other. They look like point to point swags. Used the Bezier Curve tool.

Then I added the colors (in the order the designer wanted) from the panels that had the actual face fabric imported.

I then put the plain valance back over the shapes and increased the stroke width to bring out the lines.

P.S. a tip – I saved a copy of the valance in a separate file called “Kingston Template” so the next time I can just pull this up and just fill with color.”